Places: Atlases, Maps, and Geospatial
material.

The atlases, maps and geo-spatial material
included in the Boston Streets collection measure and record the growth
of the physical landscape of over time and the changing use of space.
Atlases from 1874, 1898, and 1928 are available for browsing and searching,
both as documents and utilizing a geospatial mapping tool. The atlases
contain an overview map of the city and detailed, hand-colored plates
of smaller sections of the city. These atlases contain information
about property ownership and land use as well as being a record of
the streets and addresses in the city. Overview maps of Boston, ranging
from 1844 to 1950 are also available in both forms.

Geographic points corresponding to specific addresses in the city
that were derived from the atlases became the basis for the linkages
between the map points, the directories, and the images. The geospatial
access tool has a collection of points that mark addresses from each
of the atlases, along with buildings and other areas from the overview
maps. To learn more about how the maps and the geospatial information
derived from them were created and used, see the project documentation
in the Project Details.